The giant rubber duck has left Beijing after about a month's stay with a big farewell party in the Summer Palace in northwestern part of the city. Reports say some 10,000 people showed up at the event to say goodbye, including big stars like Jackie Chan.

I didn't bother to go there, because, to be frank, I couldn't find a proper reason to celebrate the presence of the giant yellow sculpture in the first place.

The giant duck is probably not for me, born in the 1970s. Our generation spent out childhood in a time when China was not as wealthy as today, and few of us played with a small cute rubber duck in the bathtub before going to bed.

The parents of one of my friends were dragged to the exhibition by their daughter who is in her 20s. After taking a few snapshots of the duck, the couple grumbled that they still couldn't figure out why people were so excited by the tall sculpture, "It's nothing more than an unusually large duck, isn't it?"

At previous exhibitions in cities like Amsterdam, Sydney and Hong Kong, the duck all fared very well. A giant yellow rubber duck floating in the bay brings back sweet childhood memories for many people.

As one of my American colleagues noted pointedly, "Who hasn't had a bath with a rubber duck in the US? That's what so cool about it."

I got it. The duck is adorable. People identify with it. The yellow color enriches the city landscape. But, forgive me for my pathetic search for something beyond cuteness, is the duck really art?

The only unusual feature of this piece of art seems to be its large size, at 18 meters high. Is size art? If the giant sculpture was be Snoopy, Tom, Jerry or the Big Big Wolf from the most popular Chinese cartoon, will we still witness the crowds swarming to the exhibition?

Besides, artistic works rarely come with a craze like the one stimulated by the rubber duck. Neither are they celebrated by the presence of popular movie stars, singers, TV personalities and the likes.

The rubber duck raked in more than 200 million yuan ($32.86 million) during a period of more than four weeks' time in Beijing. Duck-related products yielded about another 7 million yuan income.

Therefore, art or not, the exhibition is definitely a huge commercial success.

Having said that, I have to give Florentijn Hofman, the father of the rubber duck, the credit of being the first person in the world to create an inflatable structure of this size. That is true innovation.

Many Chinese have asked why China cannot create its own "rubber duck" or an equally creative equivalent.

If there's anything people can take away with them from the big duck, it's this question, which is worth some deep and hard thought. The idea of designing a giant rubber duck may not belong to Hofman alone, but it's Hofman who put the idea into practice.

Speaking of innovation, with which our country has been so obsessed in recent years, we might learn a lesson from the story of the rubber duck. New ideas are valuable, but we also need the bravery to act upon them.

Xu Qinduo, a commentator on current affairs with China Radio International